Capillary electrophoretic immunoassays

Capillary electrophoretic immunoassay (CEIA) has recently emerged as a new analytical technique. CRA, when combined with sensitive detection methods such as laser induced fluorescence (LIF), offers several advantages over conventional immunoassays. CEIA can perform rapid separations with high mass sensitivity, simultaneously determine multiple analytes and is compatible with automation. The objective of this review is to describe the applications of CE in antibody related studies, focussing especially on recent developments of CEIA technique. The principles for competitive and non-competitive CEIA are described with examples. Several detection methods and various applications are summarized and future developments in CEIA are speculated. CEIA has many potential applications, especially if the throughput is improved by using either multicapillary array or microchips with multiple channels. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.